Austin College Alumnus Set to Referee Super Bowl XLVII

Former Austin College football player and 1997 Athletics Hall of Honor inductee Byron Boston has been assigned to the officiating crew for Super Bowl XLVII, it has been announced. This will mark the third time Boston has worked the Super Bowl since becoming an official for the National Football League.

Boston, a 1973 graduate of Austin College and former 2nd Team All-Texas College selection as a tight end, will be a line judge on the officiating crew for the Super Bowl. He previously served in the same capacity for Super Bowl XXXIV, when St. Louis defeated Tennessee in 2000. Boston has been working as an NFL official since 1995. He has also served as an alternate official in another Super Bowl.

Boston began officiating in 1977, working Texas high school football games until 1994, and has also officiated in the junior college ranks as well as working for the Southland Conference and Southwestern Conference. He also worked the Division 1AA playoffs, and his final collegiate game as an official was the 1994 Holiday Bowl.

During his time in the NFL, Boston has regularly worked as an official in both American Football Conference and National Football Conference championship games, including working the 2009 AFC Championship between Baltimore and Pittsburgh and the 2010 NFC Championship between New Orleans and Minnesota.

Boston and his wife Carolyn live in Humble, and have three children – Alecia, who is an attorney in Houston, Byron Jr., a Dallas police officer, and David, a former All-American at Ohio State who also played wide receiver for several years in the NFL.

Austin College is a leading national independent liberal arts college located north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas. Founded in 1849, making it the oldest institution of higher education in Texas operating under original charter and name, the college is related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church (USA). Recognized nationally for academic excellence in the areas of international education, pre-professional training, and leadership studies, Austin College is one of 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope's influential book Colleges that Change Lives.